The tireless efforts of the Jersey City Medical Center's Emergency Medical Services unit took center stage Wednesday night when the Medical Center celebrated its
130th anniversary at the Liberty House Restaurant.

The EMS at the Jersey City hospital is one of the oldest in the nation, officials said, and their efforts over the past year -- especially after superstorm Sandy -- were exceptional, the hospital's chief executive said.

"We're very proud of all the work our EMS folks do,
and they're just a terrific group of people who are really dedicated to saving
lives in Hudson County," said Joseph Scott, president and CEO of Jersey City Medical Center.

The EMS is made up of paramedics and emergency medical technicians, working together to treat patients. Paramedics arriving to treat an injured person are in constant communication with doctors at the
hospital, sending vital signs and other readings, said George Nguyen, who was named JCMC Paramedic of the Year at the dinner.

The Medical Center's EMS crew has excelled during some of the most significant incidents in American history, such as
the Black Tom explosion in 1916, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the Miracle on the Hudson, said Robert Luckritz, director of EMS.

"There is so much experience in the staff of the EMS
and they carry that level of experience every day when they go out on the street,"
Luckritz said.

Luckritz said the Medical Center's EMS is the first in the nation to be triply accredited in Operations, Dispatch and
Education by the Commission for Accreditation of Ambulance Services.

"It's not
a requirement for an ambulance service to be accredited, but it's something we
sought out to show that we really hold ourselves to a gold standard," Luckritz
said.

Mary Cataudella, the hospital's vice president of human
resources, recently became certified as an EMT and got an even greater appreciation for the job after her intensive training.

"The first responders
are the first to touch the patients and interact with families," Cataudella said. "They are key to
this Medical Center, and I am totally in awe of them," she said.

Since 2005, the JCMC has used the MARVLIS system to place EMTs and strategic locations, ready to respond to an emergencty. The
MARVLIS system is a software program that "takes data from the last five years on
where emergency calls have been in the city, and predicts where the next call
is likely to come from," Scott said.

The system has
significantly improved mortality rates and response time.

"In most of the country you see usually one in five
patients survive a heart attack. In Hudson County, one in two of our patients
do," Scott said.

The national average for EMS response time is about nine
minutes, but the JCMC has cut that number to 5.8 minutes, officials said.

Sabreen Elkomeywas named EMT of the Year, Nguyen was Paramedic of the Year, Steve Job Dispatcher of the Year, Ian McFarland the Director's Award and Richard Lopez the Medical Director's Award.